Transcript
Speaker: And we could be superstars We've been rather wrecking tall What does that say for us?
Speaker: What's going on, everybody?
Speaker: Welcome back again to the Passing Downs Podcast.
Speaker: I'm your host, Rahul, and I'm here with my co-host, PD.
Speaker: PD, say what's up.
Speaker: What's up?
Speaker: And today we're back after a little bit of a break.
Speaker: As you guys all know, the football season ended a couple months ago, NFL season rather, and as a result, there's been no football to talk about.
Speaker: Not much going on.
Speaker: Been a pretty depressing part of the year for all football fans.
Speaker: But luckily right around the corner is the NFL draft.
Speaker: And as a quarterback show, we're going to talk about some of the biggest prospects coming into this year's draft.
Speaker: And one of the bigger prospects who we're going to talk about today projected to go around number two, number three, maybe slip.
Speaker: We'll see how things go on the day of, but definitely widely regarded as the number two prospect in this year's class.
Speaker: And that's UNC quarterback Drake May.
Speaker: Drake May coming into this draft in the combine measured in at 6'4", 223 pounds, arm length at 32 and a quarter inches, hand size about 9 and an eighth inches,
Speaker: And in terms of how he's viewed in the general NFL space, he's the type of almost prototypical project quarterback, you could say.
Speaker: He's got amazing arm talent.
Speaker: He's got the size that you would want out of a lot of NFL quarterbacks.
Speaker: He's got the athleticism, which he showed plenty of times, even though it may not translate to the league, given he played ACC defenses.
Speaker: He is still a very, very athletic guy, but unfortunately some of his fundamentals aren't there.
Speaker: You see a lot of question marks in his footwork.
Speaker: You see a lot of question marks in his quick game.
Speaker: And in general, a lot of analysts have labeled him as a project guy.
Speaker: Someone like Josh Allen.
Speaker: I've seen a lot of Justin Herbert comparisons and...
Speaker: Just in general, people see him as the guy who has all the tools but has not necessarily put it together yet.
Speaker: And he's got the upside of some of the better quarterbacks in the league.
Speaker: And the downsides are there because of the clear flaws in his game.
Speaker: that's kind of an overview of how he is as a player.
Speaker: With that being said, we did a lot of film analysis on the guy.
Speaker: I watched a majority of his last two seasons.
Speaker: So I'll let us jump right into that.
Speaker: You can get that started, PD.
Speaker: Yeah, don't sell me short with the majority.
Speaker: I watch literally every Drake May game.
Speaker: Yeah, fair enough.
Speaker: From 2022 to 23.
Speaker: Obviously, not all of those are going to be all 22, but a decent enough chunk of them are all 22 where I feel...
Speaker: Decent enough about the Drake May opinions.
Speaker: And yeah, Potty nicely described some opinions from quote-unquote draft experts, even if I don't think there's such a thing as a draft expert.
Speaker: But people who talk about the draft for a living say that about Drake May, and we're going to inspect the evidence.
Speaker: specifically going through some important games that I decided to highlight for his 2022 film, and then speedrun through his 2023 games to get a little bit of a better sense of how he was impacting the college game and what he was doing on the field specifically in those games.
Speaker: And then at the end of the podcast, we'll wrap up with our personal opinions on Drake May, what we see as strengths and weaknesses in the high-level attributes,
Speaker: in his game and make a final determination of where he stands as a prospect and spoiler he's gonna be pretty good so where he stands relative to other prospects in other classes that's the type of discussion we'll be having at the end here so alright so let's jump right into it with the 2022 game so
Speaker: I'm gonna start off this one for me with the Virginia Tech game.
Speaker: This was the first game that I saw a dominant performance from May.
Speaker: In my grading, the way it works for college prospects is that once you get above a.5 points added per play, that's a super elite game.
Speaker: And this is the first game where he absolutely obliterated that threshold with a.638 points added per play.
Speaker: Accuracy in this game a little bit up and down, but
Speaker: with the 44% perfect pass rate, but you can kind of see his aggression be a reason for that with a 14 average depth of target, pushing the ball way down the field consistently.
Speaker: And there were just so many amazing throws in this game, man.
Speaker: The one I wanted to highlight was one on the right sideline to Bryson Nesbitt.
Speaker: Super tight window.
Speaker: He just fit it right in there, and he was just chucking it all over the yard to Josh Downs.
Speaker: So very, very impressed with his performance.
Speaker: What do you think about this game, bud?
Speaker: I agree with a lot of what you said about this game.
Speaker: This was the first game to me and I feel like even looking back at that season as a fan I feel like this is kind of when Drake May burst onto the scene a little bit with such a not only a dominant performance from him but it brought people's attention because it was also a dominant win which that tends to brings people eyes to anything and I think this game showed me a lot of why I like Drake May as a prospect.
Speaker: I really really love his ability to place the ball in perfect positions and have great accuracy despite going downfield and as PD talked about he was launching it all over the place in this game and you would have thought the accuracy numbers would drop as a result of that and it didn't whatsoever.
Speaker: Left and right he was hitting passes, a couple of misses here and there but in general he was very strong in the pocket throughout.
Speaker: This is one of those games where we didn't even really need to see his playmaking ability a whole lot because he was just cooking this defense, standing in the pocket and just getting deep bomb after deep bomb.
Speaker: It showed his high-level arm talent.
Speaker: It showed that ability to kind of just make a play out of nowhere for a team.
Speaker: And that's the type of qualities you want as an elite quarterback coming into the league.
Speaker: Alright, next game we're going to talk about another dominant performance from May, this one against Pitt.
Speaker: 0.529 points added per play for me, but this game, a big jump over the pass game that we talked about with a 78.6% perfect pass rate.
Speaker: That is an incredible mark.
Speaker: It's because it's a lot more conservative in terms of the ADOT in this game, checking it down a lot, playing short, throwing screens, but the reason this was impressive to me was that
Speaker: He played multiple styles in the two past games that we discussed with Virginia Tech and Pitt, pushing it down the field aggressively with some accuracy hiccups in terms of putting the ball exactly where he wanted it to, but very difficult to do that at a high level on deep passes.
Speaker: And then this game, you could see him hit a high watermark for accuracy.
Speaker: We'll discuss towards the end of the podcast why we think that's probably not that sustainable.
Speaker: in terms of high level accuracy underneath, but it was interesting to see or encouraging to see him at least play a different way successfully in this game.
Speaker: Yeah, I love that you mentioned that because this game also to me showed he can play in a lot of different systems in the NFL because one of his biggest traits as a player is in addition to that kind of playmaking ability, out of structure ability,
Speaker: He is very much able to run a pro level offense and play within the structure, within a game plan and with that still be very very consistent and just methodically destroy defenses that way.
Speaker: Like you said in this pit game we didn't see as many deep bombs, as many shots as we saw in that VT game maybe because it was slightly closer in terms of the level of play compared to his team in UNC.
Speaker: And still, even with the shorter passes, which a lot of the time you'll see him struggle, we'll talk about that even more because of his lack of fundamentals in some aspects, the dodgy footwork.
Speaker: But in this game, you kind of saw the upside of things.
Speaker: When he does have a little bit more time in the pocket, when he does make sure to set his feet,
Speaker: He is absolutely able to translate that accuracy and level of ball placement to different regions of the field.
Speaker: And he's just, like you said, you said it perfectly.
Speaker: He's able to win the game in multiple ways.
Speaker: And when you have a quarterback that can not only play in structure and out of structure, it gives you a lot of flexibility as an offense.
Speaker: And it allows your offense to dig out of holes a lot of the time, which we will see in future games.
Speaker: Alright, moving on to the next game that we want to discuss.
Speaker: This one against Wake.
Speaker: Very, very impressive performance.
Speaker: More in the vein of the Virginia Tech game where he's pushing the ball down the field aggressively..482 points added per play with a 54.8 perfect pass rate with an 11 plus A dot in this game, which is
Speaker: It's hard to put into words without making a graph, which I can't do on a podcast, obviously.
Speaker: But incredible, incredible performance when you consider how deep he's pushing the ball down the field and how well he threw passes in this game.
Speaker: Incredible, incredible game.
Speaker: I also want to highlight a specific throw.
Speaker: He made an amazing tight window throw to Josh Downs deep down the field outside the numbers.
Speaker: Just wanted to highlight that play as one that really stood out.
Speaker: Yeah, this game absolutely was a Josh Downs and Drake May masterclass.
Speaker: It was one of those games where you say, we have the best player on the field at receiver.
Speaker: We have a quarterback that can get it to him every single time.
Speaker: And we're just going to go to it over and over again.
Speaker: And like we saw in that VT game, Drake May is the type of quarterback who can do that and do that consistently.
Speaker: When you have a defense who simply can't keep up with the receiver you have, Drake May is not going to miss those passes.
Speaker: And that's why we saw...
Speaker: time in and time out him throw dots downfield to Josh Downs.
Speaker: It felt like every other play I was seeing a completion to him.
Speaker: And this is another one of those games where I was talking about Wake Forest was going up and down the field with them scoring and you needed a guy like May to be able to make those plays to score
Speaker: this amount to keep them in the game to even win them that game.
Speaker: And there's not many quarterbacks who would be able to just drop 450 yards, multiple touchdown passes in order to come around and win you this game.
Speaker: But with a lot of the games that we see in the NFL where the talent difference is a lot and we see it even more in these college games, a little bit less because it's UNC and his team honestly was not that good.
Speaker: But this Wake Forest defense was pretty clearly below the levels of what Josh Downs was and we saw that.
Speaker: So I do want to take that with a little bit of grain of salt.
Speaker: But regardless, Drake May's accuracy was incredible and the deep ball was looking as good as it was in any of his games.
Speaker: Alright, so we've referenced three very good games from Drake May.
Speaker: Try to balance it out a little bit to give a better picture of how good he was in 2022 by talking about a couple bad games here.
Speaker: And unfortunately for Drake May, these both came in the national spotlight at the very end of the year.
Speaker: So pretty heavy.
Speaker: Recency bias by some people heading into his 2023 season.
Speaker: I think that's kind of anchored, to be honest, through the draft process.
Speaker: But starting off with his game against Clemson, this was rough..192 points added per play.
Speaker: Strong perfect pass rate.
Speaker: with 58.8% of his passes being perfectly thrown.
Speaker: But, man, two ugly turnover-worthy plays.
Speaker: And I'm not even including one of the pick six that he threw to Nate Wiggins, where I thought that was a little bit of a miscommunication.
Speaker: I can understand someone arguing that it was a total misthrow, though.
Speaker: His tight end moved at the last second, which kind of caused the throw to look worse than it was.
Speaker: But I think it's possible to argue that the throw would have been pretty awful,
Speaker: Regardless of that.
Speaker: So, rough game for May.
Speaker: Pretty ball in harm's way.
Speaker: Yeah, just a tough outing for him there.
Speaker: Yeah, a rare rough game for May in this season.
Speaker: And I do remember at this time it gave a lot of fuel to Drake May haters because playing on a team like UNC in the ACC, you don't really face a lot of competition.
Speaker: This is the first time you go up against a ranked opponent and not even just any team, but a top 10 team in the country.
Speaker: And as an NFL prospect, a lot of people do want to see you kind of showcase yourself on that big stage against a big team.
Speaker: But unfortunately, kind of the opposite of what we talked about in that Wake Forest game.
Speaker: Drake May's team simply was not good enough to keep him in this game and give him a fair chance at winning this one.
Speaker: That Clemson defense was all over the place.
Speaker: And you really didn't get to see a whole lot of...
Speaker: successful situations for me to be part of.
Speaker: But even with that being said, I do think this game exposed some of those negatives to his game that we talked about.
Speaker: He does take four sacks in this one, which in my opinion, all of them were his fault.
Speaker: And I feel like he was lucky to even get away with some others.
Speaker: And this ties into what we were saying about sometimes he tries to do a little bit too much
Speaker: Sometimes he's going to bail out of the pocket early when he thinks nothing's really going on in structure and he's trying to make something happen.
Speaker: But a lot of the time that can go wrong.
Speaker: And that was this game.
Speaker: I am one of those people who would have him at three turnover worthy plays for this one.
Speaker: as I am a lot of the time I feel like all of those were Majorly could have been avoided and in general he was just trying to do too much well And I'll be consistent like the Wake Forest game.
Speaker: I do hold this with a grain of salt There's a clear talent difference between that Clemson team and that UNC team so I can't hold it against me much but games like this do show that negative side of May's game which
Speaker: We really don't get to see against a lot of worse opponents.
Speaker: Yeah, just went back to check.
Speaker: Pressure management in this game was pretty rough.
Speaker: Had him listed with four early pocket bills, five pressures responsible for.
Speaker: Only two sacks responsible for, but I do still think that the pressure management in this game was bad.
Speaker: And, of course, the turnover he plays put the team in a pretty big hole.
Speaker: All right, so one more game to talk about from 2022.
Speaker: That one's against Oregon.
Speaker: This one, again, rough..198 points added per play.
Speaker: Accuracy really rough in this one.
Speaker: 43.3% perfect pass rate with an 11.2 ADOT.
Speaker: He has an amazing throw to Kobe Pesor for the 49-year touchdown.
Speaker: Just stuffed it into that tight window.
Speaker: And another impressive touchdown sliding to his left.
Speaker: Lobs it right over one defender and drops it in front of the other.
Speaker: But, man, there were so, so many missed throws in this game.
Speaker: And really...
Speaker: The thing that cut into his impact significantly was the turnover of the plays in this one were pretty rough.
Speaker: And you could just see it in the completion percentage basic stuff.
Speaker: The completion percentage in this one is not lying.
Speaker: So, yeah, very inconsistent up and down game for May.
Speaker: Made some special throws, but for me, this one came up just a little short.
Speaker: Yeah, and to me, the biggest takeaway for this game was almost, in hindsight, kind of foreshadowing to the 2023 season.
Speaker: Because I believe Josh Downs does not play in this game.
Speaker: And you get a very similar UNC team to the offense that we saw.
Speaker: Throughout that 2023 year, which was clearly subpar.
Speaker: And I feel like in this really big game against another ranked opponent, which as we talked about, UNC did not play a lot of this year.
Speaker: I feel like May was thrust into a poor situation here where...
Speaker: Once again, the talent difference was pretty significant and he lost his best guy and throughout the year next year, we'll talk about it.
Speaker: I feel like he almost adjusted to having to deal with the team like this and in this game, he wasn't really able to do it on the fly.
Speaker: And for that reason, I feel like you saw a lot of those incompletions, a lot of those
Speaker: uh turnover-worthy plays i feel like he was trying to overcompensate for all of those missed big plays that we were getting from josh downs so to replace that he was trying to play make he was trying to find yards out of nothing when plays weren't working and much like that clemson game maybe not to the same degree
Speaker: We were getting a lot of those plays going wrong because he was trying too much.
Speaker: I also thought both of the sacks in this game were massively his fault and he got away with a couple more.
Speaker: And that does kind of tie into his elusiveness.
Speaker: A big reason why he's not taking as many sacks as he should with the amount of bails he's having is because he's so big and strong and elusive and able to and flexible and able to get out of the pressure.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: It's a lot harder to do that in the NFL.
Speaker: And I feel like he will have to manage that kind of hero ball mentality at times because this was another one of those games where it came to his detriment.
Speaker: All right, so that will wrap up our 2022 season, quote-unquote, in-depth breakdowns.
Speaker: We're going to try to fly through this 2023 season because it is important and we want to touch on every game.
Speaker: It's going to sound like I'm just reading numbers, which I will be, but we really do got to fly.
Speaker: We only want to spend...
Speaker: A couple minutes on each game, Max.
Speaker: So let's start it off with their week one game.
Speaker: This one against South Carolina, pretty big game.
Speaker: May in this one, strong pocket management, forced four missed tackles, seven evaded pressure, and only one early pocket bail.
Speaker: Accuracy was a little scattershot, sub 50% perfect pass rate in this one, but he produced enough volume with good enough efficiency that I thought this was a good game for him.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm in a similar boat.
Speaker: I did think one of those interceptions were his fault, and that took away from his game a bit.
Speaker: However, like you said, he was very accurate.
Speaker: A lot of chunk plays that kind of took away from the mistakes he made.
Speaker: Didn't take any sacks, like you mentioned.
Speaker: And overall, I do think once again he showed that level of accuracy that I like out of him on deeper passes.
Speaker: Ended up having a successful offensive day.
Speaker: Alright, moving on to the next one.
Speaker: This one, week two against Appalachian State.
Speaker: Really subpar opponent, but we evaluate what we can.
Speaker: Main, this one, six evaded pressures.
Speaker: Three of them responsible for, in my opinion.
Speaker: Two early pocket bails.
Speaker: His accuracy...
Speaker: in this one was better than the first game.
Speaker: Hit 15 of his 26 passes perfectly, which is plus 50%.
Speaker: So kind of in the healthy mark for that one.
Speaker: No turnover-worthy plays in this one.
Speaker: Just a very solid game against a terrible opponent.
Speaker: I have this a little bit lower than you, I think.
Speaker: And a big reason why I felt like this game was very telling about the downsides of his game is, as you mentioned, this team was pretty subpar to the amount of talent UNC has.
Speaker: It's a non-conference team.
Speaker: But one thing I found interesting is the way they played me.
Speaker: And I feel like other teams later in the season kind of
Speaker: match this mentality and were able to have some success versus him.
Speaker: I feel like Appalachian State did a great job of taking away that deep pass consistently.
Speaker: And obviously with the talent Drake May has on this roster, you don't see it a whole lot.
Speaker: But obviously that's the most lethal part of his game.
Speaker: But when you kind of take that aspect of his game away and force him to play underneath,
Speaker: We know he's not anywhere near as lethal as most quarterbacks are but with his kind of fundamentals being shaky you saw a lot more of those passes over the middle kind of drop the the yard the yards he was gaining on his passes were starting to get less and less purely because he was getting a lot more clamped as you said he had a couple of pocket bales a couple of sacks I feel like that was because Appalachian State was able to do a great job of bringing in pressure and
Speaker: And when he did have that counter to that pressure of just a deep shot, I did see him struggle a bit.
Speaker: It wasn't a terrible game for me, but slightly below average purely because I thought this is one of those games where he wasn't the team with the worst talented roster.
Speaker: It was Appalachian State, and he didn't take advantage.
Speaker: Alright, moving on to the next game, this one against Minnesota.
Speaker: This one he threw some disgusting turnover plays.
Speaker: Both of his interceptions, absolutely horrendous.
Speaker: One of them he just looked like he didn't see the defender at all.
Speaker: Just an atrocious interception.
Speaker: To go along with that, not very good accuracy in this game, but he was really aggressive pushing the ball down the field with a 13 plus A dot in this game.
Speaker: 11 evaded pressures, but 6 early pocketbills.
Speaker: So bringing that impact down from the pressure management a little bit, he kind of played a really up-and-down game, but in the end, the aggression and ability to complete passes kind of won out for me.
Speaker: And I had this game in the positive.
Speaker: Huge volume game.
Speaker: But yeah, I'm interested to see what you think about this one.
Speaker: Yeah, this was kind of a rare occurrence in this season because as we know this UNC team was not at all equipped to be this kind of run and gun offense that makes mistakes and gets a lot of yards and they played exactly like that in this game.
Speaker: For whatever reason, May and McCollum had a great synergy in this game and they were destroying that Minnesota defense.
Speaker: I also agreed those two turnover-worthy plays were pretty ugly.
Speaker: And it does resemble a little bit of the downsides of him.
Speaker: You did see him kind of just flutter his feet, get square, and just, like you said, as if he didn't see the defender at all, just throw a pretty boneheaded pick.
Speaker: And I feel like when you have a quarterback that's a little bit unpolished like May,
Speaker: with the fundamentals you're gonna have to live with that and we saw that kind of down drawback of him in this game uh but we also saw saw the positives of him and what makes him such a generational prospect because he was able to dig his team out of that hole with those incredible deep plays so i would also probably have it average to slightly positive but a very interesting game for his profile for sure all right moving on to the next game this one is in pittsburgh um
Speaker: And he was really asked to carry the team on his bag in this one.
Speaker: Ended up taking five sacks.
Speaker: Three of them were his fault, in my opinion.
Speaker: Just a general poor game from a pressure management standpoint.
Speaker: Only four evaded pressures, and five of them he was responsible for.
Speaker: Ended up making a ton of plays down the field, though.
Speaker: Consistently hitting those intermediate areas.
Speaker: made an incredible throw to JJ Jones, and then another one deep down the field to Copenhaver.
Speaker: So that really helped his impact, but in terms of the pressure management, it did bring his overall game down for me.
Speaker: No turnover-worthy plays in this one helps, though.
Speaker: Yeah, this game was very funny to me, first of all, because in back-to-back years, he beats Pittsburgh with a very similar scoreline.
Speaker: But this game, very similar to some of the games we saw last year, reminded me and showed me that Drake May can win in multiple ways.
Speaker: To me, this game was a lot more methodical, a lot more in structure, and...
Speaker: The UNC offense pretty much just told him, here's the game plan, we're going to let you do your thing.
Speaker: And he absolutely executed it perfectly, was able to dismantle this Pittsburgh defense drive by drive.
Speaker: And unfortunately, those sacks do take away from him a little bit.
Speaker: But I think I gave him a little bit more credit on those because this was a pretty atrocious blocking performance from UNC's offensive line.
Speaker: Which is a common theme this season.
Speaker: This wasn't the only time that happened.
Speaker: But I really felt it in this game.
Speaker: And a game coming up in a couple of weeks.
Speaker: So I excused him for that.
Speaker: This comes out to be a good game for me.
Speaker: Alright, moving on to the next performance.
Speaker: This one against Syracuse.
Speaker: Insane volume game from Drake May.
Speaker: I'm not sure many quarterbacks in this draft can even support this kind of volume.
Speaker: So, impressive point to think about for this.
Speaker: His pressure management in this game was wildly up and down.
Speaker: Forced 8 missed tackles in this game, which was just a pretty crazy number.
Speaker: 11 evaded pressures.
Speaker: Four of them he was responsible for in eight early pocket bails.
Speaker: So you can see him breaking out of these potential sack situations, but he's kind of causing them himself too.
Speaker: Overall, didn't put the ball in harm's way in this one, and wasn't way too aggressive pushing the ball down the field.
Speaker: This one ended up, in terms of efficiency, to be just okay for me, but I can understand being higher on it just based on the volume.
Speaker: Yeah, I was actually a pretty big fan of this game and my response to the early pocket bales and things of that regard is I think May and this offense knew the Syracuse defense was there for the taking.
Speaker: They clearly were not at their level.
Speaker: And I feel like Dre almost resorted or just went with the backyard football purely because he was able to.
Speaker: They were the better team.
Speaker: And maybe you don't want to see that.
Speaker: Maybe a more in-structure approach would have been more interesting to see for his NFL profile.
Speaker: But sometimes on college game days, you do.
Speaker: you are just better than the other team and may just, I feel like flexed his talent here and was able to kind of showcase his abilities in various different ways in playmaking in his outer structure play stuff that we wouldn't really see in other games.
Speaker: And we probably shouldn't see in other games because it would be a more serious situation against the better team.
Speaker: I feel like this was more him experimenting and
Speaker: I don't really want to take away from him because it was still a very dominant performance, incredible volume, like you mentioned.
Speaker: And even with none of his receivers necessarily being dominant and just destroying the other defense, he was just simply able to, like I was talking about, find space almost like a point guard, draw those linebackers in and just find the open guy and get it to them.
Speaker: And it shows me that he can carry rosters that don't necessarily have the talent and still be
Speaker: impactful because of that ability those abilities uh especially when he's playing poorer defenses like the syracuse team all right moving on to the next one against miami florida um this one was a rough game for me um you can see it even the completion percentage but the accuracy in this game very yuck um sub 50 percent
Speaker: not pushing the ball down the field way too much like you would see in some of his other games.
Speaker: Four evaded pressures, four of them responsible for three early pocket bales.
Speaker: So not exactly some huge performance in terms of avoiding pressure.
Speaker: And he also throws a dropped interception, or he was trying to throw it away, but
Speaker: He just came up short and left it inbounds, so not a particularly great performance in terms of that.
Speaker: Also has a fumble where he gets hit while throwing, so I didn't blame that play on him, but it does exist, and I think that you could end up having that on him.
Speaker: So yeah, just not a very good performance at all from me in this one in my opinion.
Speaker: Real quick before I get into this game, one thing I feel like we haven't touched on at all in all of these games and he was great at in the previous game was his rushing ability.
Speaker: I think that's something that's also a huge part of his game and he also killed that Syracuse defense with his legs.
Speaker: But going back to this Miami game, like you said, not so much a successful performance and I found it really weird because one thing we'll talk about later is I think a huge benefit to Drake May and the way he plays, his playstyle.
Speaker: would be having a very efficient and good run game.
Speaker: And in this Miami game, it was a rare occurrence where this UNC team actually performed well on the run.
Speaker: Honestly, I'd say we're dominant on the run in this one.
Speaker: And all you really needed May to do was kind of play in his bread and butter, that deeper range of the field, because the short yardage situations were taken care of with how dominant this run game was.
Speaker: And to me, this was simply a very poor accuracy day.
Speaker: He just
Speaker: It wasn't his day.
Speaker: He wasn't making the throws you would normally see him making.
Speaker: And as a result, it just ended up being a bad performance for me.
Speaker: And it's disappointing because once again, it comes against a ranked opponent.
Speaker: And this time, I think it's a ranked opponent that he actually could have shown out even more for.
Speaker: And I think a lot of people took this as a good game for him because he beat Miami and wins this game.
Speaker: Throws four touchdowns as well.
Speaker: But I think those stats kind of mask the...
Speaker: lack of the accuracy he has in this one.
Speaker: And once again, the ability to manage himself in the pocket was pretty poor in this one.
Speaker: Takes five sacks.
Speaker: I also thought there were plenty of pocket bails.
Speaker: And once again, just trying to do too much.
Speaker: All right, moving on to the next one.
Speaker: So this game, I think, might be the most underrated game of Mace.
Speaker: Maybe this one or the next one.
Speaker: Actually, probably the next one.
Speaker: But this one is right up there because they lost to Virginia.
Speaker: And on the last play of the game he throws an interception which I didn't think was on him He gets absolutely clobbered while he's throwing so that just kind of I would call that an offensive line issue this game 56 percent perfect pass rate But what gets even crazier is when you look at it His average depth of target in this one was over 14 yards for me So that that is very impressive number when pushing it down the field that aggressively and he was making a ton of throws
Speaker: Unfortunately, his receivers were just not up to task of catching them at all times.
Speaker: You can see a big drop from Nate McCollum in this one in the third quarter.
Speaker: Also, he has a couple of great throws that result in 33 and 30-yard gains.
Speaker: Not going to get noticed as much because they ended up losing the game.
Speaker: Also has another pass where...
Speaker: May throws it pretty perfectly for JJ Jones, but he doesn't end up making the catch because it's a pretty egregious PI.
Speaker: So that play the fourth quarter could have really turned things around, not in Drake May's control, as well as a bunch of plays early in the first quarter where he was...
Speaker: generating positive stuff for his offense.
Speaker: The one pass that he ended up throwing that was interceptable was not his fault, in my opinion.
Speaker: I didn't have any turnover-worthy plays for him in this one.
Speaker: I just thought this was a pretty dominant performance.
Speaker: And even in the pressure department, seven evaded pressures, four of them he was responsible for, with three early pocket bails.
Speaker: I just came away from this one, despite the loss, thinking that he played really well.
Speaker: Yeah, I would have to agree.
Speaker: And to me, this isn't necessarily his most underrated game.
Speaker: But I will say it is slightly underrated for sure.
Speaker: Because whenever he loses, people are going to look at that negatively.
Speaker: And this one simply was not his fault.
Speaker: And I think this game really epitomized the whole UNC offense problem.
Speaker: The amount of drops in this game were simply ridiculous.
Speaker: And I really don't think May could have done much more in terms of...
Speaker: delivering the ball in the right spots, delivering it in the right time, delivering it with accuracy.
Speaker: I feel like he did a great job of all of those things.
Speaker: I think in general, his traits look great in this one.
Speaker: Unfortunately, he just didn't have the talent around him to kind of make it happen.
Speaker: And even despite that, you saw a lot of volume from him.
Speaker: A couple of deep passes here and there, including that 62-yard pass.
Speaker: That was a ridiculous ball.
Speaker: And once again, I agree.
Speaker: I think his pocket management was solid in this one, considering the amount of block sheds that offensive line was giving up consistently.
Speaker: I thought this was one of their worst games of the season in terms of blocking in front of May.
Speaker: And I think that's why we got so many of those block sheds in this game in comparison to other ones because it seemed like he was under pressure quite often.
Speaker: And that ends up hurting his ratings, his stats in general.
Speaker: But watching the film, I do agree, this game was a pretty good game for me.
Speaker: All right, this next one is the crown jewel of, this might be the most Drake May game of Drake May's career, where he literally, he puts the team on his back, drags them to 42 points, sees his defense give up 46, still has a chance to win the game, and his team lets him down at the end.
Speaker: Just a ridiculous performance from the non-Drake May UNC team.
Speaker: This one, 62.5% perfect pass rate, which is ridiculous when you consider that
Speaker: He had, again, a 14-plus average that targeted this one.
Speaker: Four evaded pressures, one responsible for.
Speaker: He does have four early pocket bills, which is a small hole in the profile of this game.
Speaker: But he basically had a handful of slightly missed throws.
Speaker: He took one quote-unquote sack when he had an illegal forward pass, and literally the rest of the game was just...
Speaker: dominating by throwing it down the field he even has one play where bryson nesbitt just drops stone-handed drops a wide open one but i mean every part of the field he just dotted it up with explosive big time throws um i don't know you could have asked him to play a better game i guess he could have hit every throw theoretically but this is one of the best games i've ever seen probably from a prospect and it came in a loss which was kind of hilarious so
Speaker: Yeah, not much more to add to this game.
Speaker: What do you think about it?
Speaker: Games like this make me see why people just want to look at him and say, this is Justin Herbert, because this game gave me major Chargers vibes, the way May was up and down the field, every drive scoring.
Speaker: They have a bit of a lead in that fourth quarter, and then time and time again, that defense just lets them down, giving up flurries of points at once and just choking this game away.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I don't even think necessarily this UNC offense, which in general around May was pretty poor throughout this.
Speaker: I don't even think they played that bad in this one.
Speaker: Once again, this was a rare game where the run game was on point.
Speaker: And you see May only had to pass the ball 25 times in a game.
Speaker: They scored 42 points.
Speaker: That's why the run game was there.
Speaker: And you got to see Drake May with the run game in this one because...
Speaker: Because they were able to just take care of the short game without having to use Zmay, he was able to focus on what he was best at.
Speaker: And that's why we got to see him just slice and dice this Georgia Tech defense over and over.
Speaker: We saw great deep balls, great intermediate balls.
Speaker: Even the few times he was going short, they were very accurate.
Speaker: I thought the blocking in this game was solid, so he didn't really have to deal with too much pressure for...
Speaker: the pressure evasion to be a big thing i just think that this game epitomized the perfect system for drake may because if you can get him with a solid ground and pound run game and just allow him to work off that and just cook teams deep something that we see guys like someone even like cj stroud coming into the league doing now if we can get drake may doing that uh i think teams are going to be in for some trouble
Speaker: Alright, let's move on to the next one.
Speaker: We don't have to spend too much time on this.
Speaker: This is a bit of a joke of a game against Campbell.
Speaker: May, 70% perfect pass rate despite having a 12 plus ADOT in this game.
Speaker: One evaded pressure, two responsible for, barely under pressure at all, which tells you how much of a joke Campbell is if they can't even beat up on the UNC offensive line.
Speaker: But.55 points added per play, just not really something I care about in terms of evaluation this game.
Speaker: Yeah, unfortunately I have to take this game with a grain of salt.
Speaker: This Campbell team really shouldn't have been playing UNC.
Speaker: It's one of those games in college you get where you know coming in it's going to be a blowout.
Speaker: And it was exactly that.
Speaker: It felt like watching Drake May play in practice.
Speaker: And I can see that at the Combine.
Speaker: So it is what it is.
Speaker: Good game from him, but it's against subpar competition.
Speaker: Alright, moving on to the next one, this one against Duke.
Speaker: Does have the egregious ugly interception in this game against Duke, but he more than made up for it in my opinion.
Speaker: Made a ton of explosive plays.
Speaker: The accuracy was kind of up and down in this game.
Speaker: Ended up with plus 50% in terms of accuracy, but a bunch of throws where I thought he could have made a better throw.
Speaker: There's one pass where he even throws like a screen without the running back looking at him.
Speaker: So yeah, some rough passes in there, but he was really like dragging this team.
Speaker: We've mentioned a couple times that the volume for Drake May has been a significant selling point, and this game was definitely in that regard.
Speaker: You can see it in his pressure profile for this game.
Speaker: Five forced missed tackles, nine evaded pressures, does have four pressures responsible for it.
Speaker: and three early pocket bails with three sacks responsible for, but he really took the entire offense and dragged them to even have a chance in this game, ended up pulling out the win.
Speaker: So I was impressed by this game.
Speaker: Ugly interception, but I thought he made up for it with a ton of explosive plays.
Speaker: Games like this are funny to me because before watching the film for me, I heard the narratives around him and you hear, oh, he's thrown four picks in the last three games of his 23 season.
Speaker: I believe he threw four in the last four games of his previous season, ending off with a bunch of bad games.
Speaker: And I kept hearing that and thought he was finishing a lot of these seasons really poorly.
Speaker: And there are some, as we talked about the last two games of last year and as we'll get into in a second, there is some truth to it.
Speaker: But this game definitely did not fit that narrative whatsoever.
Speaker: This game once again showed me much like that Appalachian State game that he can shoulder an offense and just be able to just will you through games.
Speaker: with the sheer ability to just score over and over and over again because of his talent.
Speaker: This is one of those games where
Speaker: Once again, UNC's defense was doing absolutely nothing.
Speaker: And luckily, UNC's run game showed up once again.
Speaker: And Drake May was able to do what he's best at and attack teams deep.
Speaker: And you saw it end up in a double overtime thriller, points left and right.
Speaker: And it just once again showed me the system May should be in, the type of player he is.
Speaker: Just a lot of those positive traits shine through in games like this.
Speaker: And unfortunately, this was the last game we saw that just a little foreshadowing, but a solid game to end off his home career at UNC with.
Speaker: All right, let's move on to these last two games.
Speaker: This one is rough against Clemson.
Speaker: Accuracy nowhere to be found in this game.
Speaker: 15 for 33.
Speaker: in terms of perfect passes, which is solidly below 50%.
Speaker: Um, and a ton of these were of the uncatchable variety.
Speaker: So, um, adding to the inaccuracy component of that, um, 11 evaded pressures in this game though, um, was a positive, uh, two forced missed tackles, uh, three pressures responsible for one early pocket bail.
Speaker: And I only thought that one of the four sacks was on him.
Speaker: So I thought the pressure management of this game from him individually was pretty solid.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Put the ball in harm's way, though, multiple times with an interception at the end and one another dropped interception where he really should have been picked off.
Speaker: And then, as I mentioned, the accuracy from before.
Speaker: Not exactly doing enough in terms of the big play department to make up for it.
Speaker: Does have a few impressive throws at the beginning of the game, but overall as a collective, I only thought he played okay in this game.
Speaker: Even though he did show me...
Speaker: some impressive things in terms of a sustainability standpoint, like calling out protections and getting to some throws that you wouldn't normally see in a progression.
Speaker: So some high-end takeaways for me were in the positive here, but from a performance standpoint, this was not good at all.
Speaker: Yeah, I thought you were about to say his overall performance here was okay because I was going to disagree with that.
Speaker: This was a pretty poor performance for me.
Speaker: And unfortunately, unlike his last season Clemson game, this Clemson team was nowhere near as good.
Speaker: So he does not really have the excuse of the opposing team was just way too talented.
Speaker: This was just simply an off game for me.
Speaker: And it comes in a really weird one because once again, we talked about how in games where the run game isn't there,
Speaker: He may struggle.
Speaker: In this game, the run game once again showed up.
Speaker: And going through this, it's a couple more times than I expected that the run game did show up.
Speaker: And he still, despite that, wasn't really accurate.
Speaker: He wasn't really...
Speaker: doing a great job of avoiding pressure in my opinion i i feel like this clemson team despite the unc offensive line being pretty poor i didn't think this clemson defensive line was that elite and i feel like with the way may evaded pressure he made them look a lot better than they did
Speaker: and in trying to do too much you saw a lot of those incompletions happen.
Speaker: This just was in the opposite way to the other game we were talking about.
Speaker: Once again epitomized that this UNC team season because as much as Drake May wanted to do this team was not helping him out whatsoever and I feel like he kind of dug himself a hole and kept making mistakes and mistakes trying to bring this UNC team back into the game and it just ended up being a really poor performance.
Speaker: I feel like a lot of these games can be cut out once he's in the league.
Speaker: Cause I don't think he'll have such terrible rosters around him.
Speaker: Ideally once he is in the league.
Speaker: Uh, but you, you never know.
Speaker: And the fact that the, these, these weaknesses can show so much in games like this against Clemson, who wasn't that good is a bit concerning.
Speaker: All right, let's move on to the last game of the season for him.
Speaker: This one against rival NC state.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: The main point I wanted to make as a positive in his defense in this game was his toughness as a player.
Speaker: He gets injured in this game and ends up playing through it, ends up finishing it for his team.
Speaker: In terms of his actual performance, it wasn't too great.
Speaker: I thought he played better than the previous game, but again, not doing too much from an impact standpoint.
Speaker: His accuracy in this one was okay, but the throws that he did miss, he missed by a lot.
Speaker: and wasn't really generating a ton of explosive plays, which was the biggest issue for me.
Speaker: Ended up taking a sack fumble, which really cut into his negative impact.
Speaker: And I think overall his impact on the day was saved by a giant 55-yard run, which was definitely very impressive.
Speaker: But yeah, off of one play, I don't think that he, or outside of that one play, I don't think he had the greatest game.
Speaker: Yeah, I would agree with you, especially with the part about the injury.
Speaker: I do think that ankle hobbled him quite a bit, and we didn't really get to see the Drake May that we saw throughout the rest of the season, bar maybe that previous week.
Speaker: He played probably most similarly in this NC State game in that last week against Clemson.
Speaker: And it was surprising because you got to see one of Drake May's best rushing performances,
Speaker: despite that on off the back of that 56 yard run however unfortunately I do think that hobbled version of him simply wasn't able to create as much I feel it's a little intriguing to see how May's game may age because when you saw his inability to move he didn't look as impressive just throwing from the pocket that playmaking makes him a lot more lethal and him just sitting in structure plays
Speaker: It didn't necessarily move me as much.
Speaker: And as he gets older, maybe a little bit less athletic, that could come into play.
Speaker: Because right now, it seems to be that he was relying a lot on his athleticism.
Speaker: And especially in a conference like the ACC, where you have a lot of
Speaker: Smaller, unathletic guys compared to, obviously, the NFL.
Speaker: I feel like that athleticism may not translate as much, and if it ends up being this big of a problem, like we saw against NC State, it could be concerning if he happens to pick up injuries, or maybe when he's a little bit older.
Speaker: He may have to tweak the way he plays a little bit just so that it's sustainable and you get a little bit more instructor stuff.
Speaker: Because it shouldn't be the case that Mei's game drops off this much when you take away one aspect of it.
Speaker: Alright, real quick, last funny point that I wanted to mention before we jump into our overall stuff, our overall thoughts.
Speaker: Last play of his entire career at UNC, he throws a pretty good pass in a tight window to Bryson Nesbitt, has it bonk off Bryson Nesbitt's face and ends up with an interception.
Speaker: The most Drake may weigh for his career to end.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: Definitely.
Speaker: Let's jump into the important part of this podcast, the meat and potatoes, where we wrap up our evaluation and our discussion of all the games into one final thought.
Speaker: So we're going to go through trait by trait, discussing accuracy, timing, his ability to manage pressure, rushing, and then discuss some style and comp, as well as think about where he would fit in the NFL in terms of teams.
Speaker: So let's start it off with the accuracy.
Speaker: So Pali and I had a little bit of a disagreement, but I don't think it's like a process-based thing.
Speaker: It's just more of a semantics-based thing.
Speaker: So in terms of how he charts...
Speaker: the important data on this is that he had a 55.4% perfect pass rate, which isn't really crippling, but it is well below the standout accuracy guys that you would see.
Speaker: Think of like CJ Stroud after his initial three game stretch in his 2021 season, where I think he was playing with an injury, ended up sitting out.
Speaker: But beyond that, he threw like an elite accuracy guy.
Speaker: Bryce Young,
Speaker: graded out as an elite accuracy guy, um, and then spoilers, Caleb Williams and Jaden Daniels both graded out as elite accuracy guys, so Drake May stands well behind them, but for me, based on, um, my charting, he stands well above guys like, um, Anthony Richardson and Will Levis, so, um, a decent baseline there, um,
Speaker: Throwing behind the line of scrimmage, I thought he was pretty solid with a 76% perfect pass rate, which is right in line with someone like Caleb Williams against Boiler.
Speaker: His perfect pass rate on short passes was something that really stood out as a weakness relative to Caleb Williams and Jaden Daniels, where he was...
Speaker: a good 10% worse in perfect pass rate versus them.
Speaker: So really, really struggling to consistently match up with guys like Caleb Williams and Jane Daniels.
Speaker: And you can see it in the processes by which they derive that accuracy.
Speaker: May's footwork has been mentioned a couple times by Potty, and I wanted to really drill it down and talk about it at a granular level.
Speaker: I don't pretend to be a biomechanics expert, but this is like something that's slapping me in the face every time I watch Drake May.
Speaker: He consistently, or I should say, he really has inconsistencies with the width of his base.
Speaker: He will really bring it together at times.
Speaker: He'll have even crossover in his footwork.
Speaker: Just doesn't have the greatest throwing platform.
Speaker: for maintaining high level accuracy.
Speaker: On top of that, he will tend to backpedal and bail his way into making a throw in the on-the-run designation is what I would chart it as rather than just staying on balance and that's kind of
Speaker: A reason for so many of his throws seeming more difficult than they really are.
Speaker: Moving to the intermediate pass stuff.
Speaker: Intermediate accuracy isn't the most sticky, but the elite accuracy guys can make it sticky.
Speaker: You can see CJ Stroud kind of maintain elite accuracy.
Speaker: from college to the NFL.
Speaker: Drake May doesn't have good accuracy in terms of intermediate passes.
Speaker: 44.3% perfect pass rate was the worst, even worse than Will Levis and Anthony Richardson.
Speaker: Just not very good at all.
Speaker: throwing accurately to the intermediate level.
Speaker: As we will discuss at the end in terms of style and fits, it's not the biggest issue to me because of other reasons, but it is worth highlighting that he misses a ton of throws and doesn't put receivers in a great spot for Yak when he does throw them.
Speaker: And then throwing deep, he was pretty good.
Speaker: ended up finishing well ahead of someone like Will Levis, above someone like Anthony Richardson or Bryce Young.
Speaker: The only guys that really beat him out are CJ Stroud and Jane Daniels, where Jane Daniels is kind of like... We'll get to that when we do the episode later.
Speaker: And then...
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, collectively, the accuracy profile, it's kind of typical for a player of May's type where incredible arm talent, but the footwork really lags behind.
Speaker: And you could see that show up on the throws that require more footwork and less arm, like short passes.
Speaker: And behind the line of scrimmage, he doesn't really have much issue because those throws are quick passes.
Speaker: You don't really set your feet too much, and you just flick it out there.
Speaker: But the throws that really require footwork and...
Speaker: need you to be consistent in terms of a base and are the majority of the throws that you make in the short passes, that's where the accuracy just sticks out like a sore thumb.
Speaker: Yeah, and as Petey mentioned at the very start of his, I slightly disagree with where we are with the accuracy purely because of that deep ball accuracy.
Speaker: When I watch him make those fade routes, those goes, and 30, 40 yards down the field with defenders draped all over his receiver in tight windows, he's able to hit his receivers in stride in perfect ball placement.
Speaker: And when I see passes like that, I realize he's capable of making those passes.
Speaker: He just clearly lacks the fundamentals and footwork to be able to make those same passes consistently in the shorter and intermediate level.
Speaker: However, that is something I think can not only one be kind of mitigated by the way a team can play their offense and just maximize how...
Speaker: Drake may play it as we saw a lot of times in the 2023 season.
Speaker: If you just have a solid run game that can take care of a lot of those short passing game and you don't need to ask me to make those quick slants, those screen passes, the sort of short game that offenses that don't really run the ball have.
Speaker: If you can just ask me not to do that, I'm very confident that he'll be able to work off the play action.
Speaker: even stick in the pocket and deliver downfield passes as we've seen him time and time out in college make those and the other reason why I'm confident is players who are in the NFL now who are being compared to May in terms of his talent and
Speaker: The rawness coming into the league.
Speaker: One of the popular ones was Justin Herbert and play style wise I think they're very different.
Speaker: But one big similarity I do feel like is Justin Herbert was also a very big raw talent and when he came in the league he honed in a little bit of those fundamentals and the footwork.
Speaker: He was definitely much further along than May.
Speaker: But you also have guys like Allen who did it once he was in the league.
Speaker: You have Burrow who did it towards the end of his college career which is about the same age May is now.
Speaker: And obviously I'm talking about outliers here but to me Drake May is a generational guy and I do think he has the outlier talent to be able to develop this.
Speaker: Not many quarterbacks can, but I do think May is one of those guys.
Speaker: And I think the arm talent and accuracy down the field with the arm talent is just so strong that I don't see it not being able to translate at least to the intermediate range of the field.
Speaker: I think a lot of the time, the intermediate range of the field was...
Speaker: not as successful for him and statistically it didn't look as good is because I think that range of the field you need by far the most help in terms of receivers.
Speaker: In deep passes it's really just okay is your receiver faster than the DB.
Speaker: With short passes it's a lot more scheming how's the blocking gonna go is the timing right.
Speaker: With those intermediate passes it's simply is your receiver gonna beat the DB on his route and a lot of the time
Speaker: those UNC receivers weren't getting separation.
Speaker: And I feel like, I don't know if the stats back it up, but I feel like in the games we watched in 2022, when he had Josh Downs, a guy who could do that a little bit, his intermediate accuracy looked a lot better.
Speaker: And when he gets to the league and has better receivers, better blocking too, so that
Speaker: He doesn't always have to build the pocket and make those ridiculous throws.
Speaker: I think he'll be able to hone in on that accuracy ability, focus up on the fundamentals that are currently holding him back.
Speaker: Obviously, it's a huge change and a majority of quarterbacks can't do it, like you've told me constantly.
Speaker: Footwork and fundamentals is one of those things that are very hard to teach, especially coming into the league.
Speaker: However, certain special talents are able to do it, especially when you have everything else and you just need that last piece to put it all together.
Speaker: And that's how I feel about May.
Speaker: And I think given the right team and given the right coaching, this accuracy can get to not maybe an elite level, but at least above average in the NFL.
Speaker: And with his deep playability, that's still amazing.
Speaker: Someone like Mahomes isn't necessarily the most accurate quarterback in the league in the lower ranges, but...
Speaker: because of what he's able to do as a playmaker and taking deep shots.
Speaker: And even now, as he's gotten older in his career, he's improved on the accuracy too.
Speaker: That's something we can definitely see Drake May do as his career goes on, even if it's not there right now in his rookie season.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't want to compare him to other players, but you brought up an excellent point, and I really love that you made that point, because I wanted to reference it, and I was about to forget.
Speaker: Drake May's perfect pass rate...
Speaker: on intermediate passes is severely downweighed by his 2023 season.
Speaker: In 2022, he was pushing in the mid-50s in terms of perfect pass rate, and in 2023, that dropped to the mid-30s.
Speaker: So you can kind of see this pattern of
Speaker: I don't know what it was, but I think that if we get Dreg May throwing that accurately in terms of the intermediate passes at the next level, scary hours for the rest of the NFL.
Speaker: Because as we're going to talk about towards the end...
Speaker: The style in which he plays is the biggest driver of the evaluation for me.
Speaker: And we'll get to that in a little bit.
Speaker: But first I want to touch on timing and anticipation.
Speaker: Unfortunately, I do not have metrics for this one.
Speaker: So this is like a pure eye test thing.
Speaker: Maybe next year I could track...
Speaker: frequently passes are thrown early, late, and on time on the all 22 copies of the games that I watch, but unfortunately because I can't track it for every game, I don't really have a great way to do it right now.
Speaker: But for me, Mei is better in terms of timing than anticipation.
Speaker: I think that he will miss stuff in his vision occasionally.
Speaker: When he sees it, it'll be on time and
Speaker: he'll hit his receiver as they're breaking.
Speaker: I don't think he throws with anticipation as frequently as I'd like, which is one hole in his profile that bothered me because, as you know, as so many times I've referenced with the types of players that I like, anticipation is really an important trait for me.
Speaker: It is extremely helpful for elevating poor offensive lines while also enhancing high-level receivers.
Speaker: And in terms of the way I want to invest in my offense, that is like
Speaker: that is the exact thing that you really really want to do with receivers having such significant value and having less of them on the field so um may's anticipation not being super great um and again spoiler um relative to another quarterback like caleb williams who i think his anticipation is extremely good um it did bother me a little bit
Speaker: Yeah, and you guys know me, even though there's no metrics for this, I'm not a huge stats guy.
Speaker: But watching him, I honestly agree with a lot of what you said, except for kind of the way you view the anticipation.
Speaker: I also agree that he didn't throw often with a lot of anticipation.
Speaker: And I wouldn't really say it's concerning to me though, because in order to throw with anticipation, you need to be able to trust that your receivers are going to get out of that break and get separation.
Speaker: And if you're throwing with anticipation and you have receivers that...
Speaker: are getting completely draped by your DBs, you're going to throw picks.
Speaker: And I think some of Drake May's picks this season were a result of that.
Speaker: The fact that his receivers simply were not good enough.
Speaker: And much like that intermediate pass rate, I feel like the fact that he didn't have receivers to play in that way was the reason he wasn't making many passes in anticipation.
Speaker: The only times I really saw him throw with anticipation were...
Speaker: Last year when you had Josh Downs and he was able to make those breaks on those out routes, make those breaks on those posts.
Speaker: And you saw Drake May make those passes way early.
Speaker: And I once again think that's something when you put him on a real offense in the NFL, I think that's something that will flourish even more.
Speaker: And additionally, when you look at a lot of the best quarterbacks in the league, as much as you love the guys who use a lot of anticipation, your Tuas, your Kirk Cousins, etc.,
Speaker: A lot of the best quarterbacks in the league, though they obviously have great anticipation, they're one of the best, that's not their significant characteristic.
Speaker: That's not their dominant trait as a player.
Speaker: And when we look at Drake May's strengths, I feel like a lot of his positives as a player align with your Patrick Mahomes, your Josh Allens.
Speaker: And I think the fact that he's not using as much anticipation yet isn't a problem.
Speaker: You saw a lot of those quarterbacks come into the league and with very little anticipation, Mahomes was able to tear up the league.
Speaker: You have Justin Herbert early in his career doing similar things.
Speaker: And it's just, when you have that level of talent, it's something that can be developed as he's playing with receivers who can actually execute that game plan.
Speaker: Because,
Speaker: I don't see a world where Drake May is making passes with accuracy in that 2023 UNC offense.
Speaker: And when we look at timing, I think that's another one of the positives of Drake May's game.
Speaker: I think in terms of when to pass the ball, he's incredible.
Speaker: Judging windows, he's done a great job.
Speaker: It's just sometimes what messes up his timing and once again it comes back to the footwork, the fundamentals.
Speaker: Sometimes he sees the right play on the field and...
Speaker: makes the decision in the right time but he hasn't set his feet in the right time or he simply isn't in the right position at the right time and has to scramble out of the pocket and that ruins things.
Speaker: So I think the kind of feel for timing is there but once again he will have to pull it together by improving on his footwork and improving on that aspect of his game.
Speaker: Yeah, in terms of the timing, that is a good point that you make.
Speaker: The footwork at UNC is just hot garbage the way that they do it.
Speaker: I've seen it with Sam Howell, and now I'm seeing it with Drake May.
Speaker: They don't actually have drops.
Speaker: It's just like, go do whatever you want out there for the quarterback.
Speaker: Actually exposing him to...
Speaker: Yeah, it's just like get yourself in like a loose throwing position somehow somewhere.
Speaker: It's just so bad.
Speaker: So I think exposing him to an actual NFL offense's tempo will do wonders for that aspect of his game.
Speaker: The part about the footwork that I'm concerned about is the way he sets up his footwork to throw accurately, which is a bit of a concern.
Speaker: And then just in terms of the anticipation, I don't want to spoil for future episodes, but we're thinking of
Speaker: doing, uh, quarterbacks discussing their traits.
Speaker: Um, someone like Josh Allen or Patrick Holmes is going to probably rank pretty highly.
Speaker: Um, and I think that, um, for your point about the dominant, uh, trait being anticipation, um, uh,
Speaker: It's true, but some of that feels like a little bit of luck to me in terms of which quarterbacks have broken out.
Speaker: And I think if CJ Stroud ends up being an elite quarterback, that will be his dominant trait.
Speaker: So we'll see how that goes for his career trajectory.
Speaker: So moving on to the next trait that we want to discuss...
Speaker: It's pressure management and avoiding sacks.
Speaker: And this is such an interesting area to me with Drake May because he is an outlier of outliers for me in the way he plays under pressure.
Speaker: So we mentioned early pocket bails a lot, and you might be thinking there's some pretty high numbers, and they really are.
Speaker: Drake May is almost double of the guy in second place.
Speaker: in terms of early pocket bail rate um and those two guys that are close in terms of second place bryce young and jayden daniels they leave the pocket at almost uh six percent for jayden daniels so maybe not maybe not double but for bryce young it's closer to five percent drake may is up at 9.37 early pocket bail rate it's just a staggering number in comparison with the rest of the guys that are charted
Speaker: He doesn't create his own pressure as consistently as maybe the guys at the top
Speaker: Spoiler someone like Caleb Williams would be a little bit higher Someone like Bryce Young or Anthony Richardson would also be a little bit higher But the things that stand out to me for Drake May was his actual grade under pressure and this is where I was saving discussing the rushing for because his ability to scramble and buy chunks of yardage under pressure is incredibly impressive he had
Speaker: A.338 grade under pressure, which is absolutely bonkers relative to everyone except for Jaden Daniels, which we will save for a little later.
Speaker: But his ability to mitigate edge pressure was particularly impressive with by far the best number versus everyone else.
Speaker: um that i've charted over the past couple of years except jayden daniels again um and his grade versus interior pressure was only topped by caleb so um very very impressive in terms of his um ability to generate explosives under pressure but there is definitely question about whether he's the one causing some of those negative plays for the offense in terms of uh plays under pressure um and his rate of sacks responsible for
Speaker: was the highest of everyone I've charted as well.
Speaker: So interesting that he can mitigate pressure extremely well, but he causes a lot of his own pressure too.
Speaker: Yeah, I find it very interesting the way you put it because I also find the way he avoids sacks and mitigates pressure very night and day.
Speaker: One thing I've always been adamant about on this podcast and in general with managing pressure, I think the best way to manage pressure and avoid sacks is getting really, really good at maneuvering in the pocket, shuffling around.
Speaker: And weirdly enough, despite having terrible footwork, like he said, his hitches look like hops and skips, but somehow, someway, he is able to, at a very high level, move around in the pocket and get to the right spaces.
Speaker: There are plenty of times in the film where you would see an edge rusher coming straight free, and you see Mei shift into the pocket in the perfect spot and delivering a strike with pressure right in his face.
Speaker: and in general i'm a huge fan of just his ability to maneuver in the pocket without dealing with too much pressure or getting sacks and even some of the times when he's leaving the pocket when he's doing it at the right times he's incredible he's so athletic and flexible that it makes him very elusive in the open field
Speaker: And it wasn't often that you would see guys come off the edge and Drake May is running around them.
Speaker: It wasn't very often you saw him get caught or get brought down by that first tackler who's getting free.
Speaker: And once he's in the open space, as we've talked about with his feel, his kind of like point guard mentality in the open field.
Speaker: It's a free game at that point.
Speaker: But I do absolutely agree.
Speaker: There's way too many times where he's bailing the pocket early.
Speaker: And one thing I will say for that, I'm somewhat confident that will improve in the NFL because there's no way he can have an offensive line as bad as that UNC offensive line.
Speaker: And a lot of the time, I feel like it felt like 2021 Mahomes almost when he
Speaker: He was bailing pockets early purely because of how bad that offensive line was.
Speaker: And he knew if he wasn't just running around to make something happen, nothing was happening out of that play.
Speaker: And once again, when you look at that previous season, I feel like that happened slightly less.
Speaker: It was still a big problem both seasons for sure.
Speaker: But I do think the personnel around him massively affects how bad he is in terms of ditching the pocket.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: Regardless, that's why it's so night and day because on one hand, he's amazing at managing pressure in the pocket and when he is in the open field and does time it right, he's so lethal, but he's abandoning it at the wrong time so much that, like you said, it's causing so many negative plays.
Speaker: And when we look at pressure management...
Speaker: I'm always a huge fan of guys with the big arms and very flexible in terms of dealing with pressure because we see time in and time out.
Speaker: Drake may just deliver the ball in such terrible conditions with guys hitting him in the face.
Speaker: He's at a weird angle and then he'll just launch it to like one of the games.
Speaker: I believe it was South Carolina.
Speaker: He was getting hit in the face.
Speaker: And he just launches it to the back corner of the end zone.
Speaker: And the fact that he's able to get those throws off just shows to me that pressure management should not be much of a problem.
Speaker: He's able to deliver the ball in so many angles.
Speaker: And his feel is so high that I feel like he's able to throw it in the right spots, even under duress.
Speaker: And sometimes that leads to interceptions, but I think there are plenty of quarterbacks in the NFL that when I saw them in college making similar sort of plays and pressure, they would throw a lot more interceptions.
Speaker: Honestly, on such a bad team, I was surprised at almost the lack of interceptions from May.
Speaker: I was expecting like a double-digit season or so.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: I'm a very big fan of that.
Speaker: The place where maybe we disagree a bit is the rushing.
Speaker: I do think he was a massive benefit.
Speaker: He was a massive benefiter of being in the ACC in what's known to be not as physical of a defensive conference.
Speaker: They don't necessarily have as much athletes in that defense.
Speaker: And if you look at the competition he was playing, even though his team was bad itself, he was playing a lot of defenses that weren't very good.
Speaker: And I think because of that, you saw him being able to time it right.
Speaker: You saw him being able to get yards in very timely occasions.
Speaker: I don't expect that to happen as much in the NFL, which much better defenders.
Speaker: I think as athletic as May is, I think once he crosses the line of scrimmage, he simply does not have the speed that...
Speaker: you need to just consistently be good in the open field.
Speaker: I think you need to be either a massive wrecking ball like Anthony Richardson or Cam Newton in the open field or Josh Allen or just incredibly elusive like Lamar Jackson in order to be hyper successful as a rusher.
Speaker: Sure, he may be able to do it at times like you see, like Aaron Rodgers in timely situations or the best at it is obviously Mahomes, but I don't expect his rushing to be a huge part of his NFL game.
Speaker: So May, according to NBC, clocked at 4.65 at some point during his UNC career.
Speaker: So I think I would say he has good speed, but I could definitely understand like like some of those like 55 yard runs that he's breaking off are probably not.
Speaker: Yeah, but I could see him definitely being a strong scrambler.
Speaker: That's an area that I would say.
Speaker: OK, I already touched on rushing.
Speaker: From my standpoint, I think he will be a good rusher, but maybe worse than college.
Speaker: The one thing I really want to touch on with his rushing is that he does not slide well.
Speaker: He slides... His sliding is inconsistent.
Speaker: He doesn't run headfirst into four defenders like Jaden Daniels all the time, but what he will do is sometimes run into defenders, and then when he slides, he like...
Speaker: He like lands on his back.
Speaker: It's not like a smooth slide at all.
Speaker: So I think that he probably should end up working on that as well as like the consistency with which he slides.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because this is actually a problem with a lot of quarterbacks who really have no baseball background.
Speaker: And it's weird that someone as flexible as May is because typically I feel like that's the problem with guys who can't slide is they're just not able to get down at a moment's notice.
Speaker: And we've seen with the angles May throws that...
Speaker: He clearly is capable of sliding.
Speaker: It definitely is a problem because obviously you don't want him running into defenders and getting injured like we saw.
Speaker: Even though it wasn't directly because of a play where he ran into a defender.
Speaker: We saw Anthony Richardson pick up injuries because of that.
Speaker: You really don't want to see your young quarterbacks run into defenders and get hurt.
Speaker: But I do think he has the ability to learn how to slide.
Speaker: I feel like...
Speaker: sliding isn't necessarily the hardest thing to learn.
Speaker: There's plenty of quarterbacks who have figured that out.
Speaker: There are plenty of quarterbacks who in college were not sliding.
Speaker: They were the type of guys who were going to run through you because they're bigger.
Speaker: And now in the NFL, that's not the case anymore.
Speaker: And May wasn't that guy in college, but he was the guy who's like, oh, I can run around you.
Speaker: And that's why I didn't really have to slide.
Speaker: I think he'll learn and I'm not too worried about that aspect of his game.
Speaker: Alright, so this is the crown jewel.
Speaker: This is the part of the podcast I've been waiting for the entire time.
Speaker: This is the style and pro comps and fits.
Speaker: So this is like the biggest area of driver of impact for me.
Speaker: And I have some important numbers here that will kind of paint the picture of why I like May so much, despite me describing his early pocket bailing habits and accuracy as poor.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: UNC's offense doesn't really run as much play action as a bunch of other top guys coming out.
Speaker: Same with the RPOs.
Speaker: Jane Daniels didn't run play action or RPOs at all, basically, but... I'll say the Jane Daniels discussion for later.
Speaker: But among the guys...
Speaker: Other than Jane Daniels that I've charted so far, which is Anthony Richardson, Bryce Young, CJ Stroud, Will Lovis, Caleb Williams, Drake May.
Speaker: Drake May's offense used the least play action in RPOs by a pretty decent amount.
Speaker: And his ability to perform on those play action in RPOs was very good with a.412.
Speaker: great on those plays which isn't it's not as good as the four guys from last year it does top Caleb Williams but Caleb Williams has like this weird niche thing for his offense where they just spam this one specific RPO where he throws it to the tight end in the flat so they run it like five times a game so it's really like depressing his his impact because that's such a short throw and I can't grade it any higher so I would say he's
Speaker: He's good on play action RPOs, but not great.
Speaker: The part that he stands out is when throwing without play action or RPOs, where he is better than everyone except Bryce Young and CJ Stroud, and both of those guys played with way, way better talent at some point during their careers than Drake May.
Speaker: And his perfect pass rate...
Speaker: on play action and RPOs is at 50%, which doesn't stand out too much, but his perfect pass rate on non-play action and RPOs was incredibly good at pushing 58%, which is better than everyone except Bryce Young, Caleb Williams, and Jaden Daniels.
Speaker: And then this is like the most important part of the entire podcast to me, which is the way that Drake May wins.
Speaker: So he is able to push the ball significantly
Speaker: through the heart of the defense better than basically anyone I've seen in a very long time.
Speaker: His percentage of passes that went inside the hashes or were targeted inside the hashes was at 27.6%.
Speaker: That is better than the second best
Speaker: guy by over 3 percentage points, which is relative to how much they push the ball inside the hashes, it's a gigantic number.
Speaker: He also was incredibly efficient on those passes with a.631 play grade.
Speaker: We mentioned that he wasn't as accurate throwing inside the numbers, but the volume and the windows in which he was testing are incredibly valuable for a high-level offense.
Speaker: in the NFL.
Speaker: And that is kind of the biggest reason for me liking Drake May so much.
Speaker: He is incredibly good, specifically pushing the ball inside the numbers and inside the hashes and attacking that area of the field with volume.
Speaker: That combined with his ability to aggressively push the ball down the field, that gives him such a high-level range of outcomes for me.
Speaker: Because if he just...
Speaker: If he just attacks those areas consistently in the NFL, you are just getting high EPA-type numbers just off of his decision-making alone.
Speaker: And that's not even mentioning the frequency with which...
Speaker: He hits those guys on time, allowing them to run after the catch.
Speaker: We mentioned his accuracy inside the numbers being up and down, but his accuracy inside the hashes in terms of perfect pass rate was incredibly impressive, although I don't want to over-index on kind of what is a small sample.
Speaker: But his ability to attack that middle of the field and attack down the field is the biggest reason that I'm high on Drake May.
Speaker: And
Speaker: Even though he might not push the greatest efficiency on those numbers in terms of what they are relative to themselves, he might not be the most accurate on inside the numbers passes.
Speaker: But the value of those passes is that you give your receivers an opportunity to run and have space.
Speaker: And you can see this with guys like Tua or Brock Purdy or CJ Stroud or...
Speaker: Just any player who plays in a college hand at offense.
Speaker: But Drake May is able to push that type of volume just on his own.
Speaker: So that type of thing gives me so much hope for Drake May.
Speaker: I'll let you touch on what you think his style is, and then we'll get into comps and fits.
Speaker: Yeah, I really like that you talked about that despite the efficiency in those areas of the field, which obviously we've talked about why that's the case.
Speaker: I think a lot of that does have to do with personnel, the situation he was in.
Speaker: But despite all that, the amount of volume that he was just driving down the middle of the field was, I agree, very, very impressive.
Speaker: And we're kind of getting to this point in the NFL where a lot of offenses are heavily utilizing the middle of the field, way more than before.
Speaker: And I'm surprised it took this long because I think naturally, intuitively, you can see using the middle of the field gives you the most space.
Speaker: It's smarter to get guys in open space and let them work in those aspects.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: It's getting to that kind of play style in the league.
Speaker: And not only is May able to do that, which you praised massively, but his ability to throw the ball outside of the numbers is incredible too.
Speaker: And I think I mentioned it earlier in the pod, but...
Speaker: When you have such a big arm, you're simply able to make some outside the number throws that a lot of quarterbacks just can't.
Speaker: Like, it's not possible for them.
Speaker: They don't have the arm talent to make that throw.
Speaker: And when you have a guy like May, who's not only...
Speaker: Lethal, I'd say outside the numbers, especially going deep when you have guys even breaking out on out routes and stuff.
Speaker: I would take May over maybe except for maybe one guy in this draft class, probably over everybody.
Speaker: And then when you have the that amount of volume coming through the middle of the field and then if you pair him with.
Speaker: much better receivers than we saw at UNC.
Speaker: I feel like things can just come together like we've seen with a lot of quarterbacks in recent memory with maybe not similar skill sets but similar kind of situations like a Justin Herbert, CJ Stroud.
Speaker: Both guys came into offenses that they didn't necessarily run in college but it massively suits their game.
Speaker: And I think if he goes to the right team, a smart team, they're going to build a situation like that.
Speaker: I think the Texans are doing that right now with Stroud, bringing in a guy like Joe Mixon.
Speaker: So you have that short ground and pound run game and then you can work off of that with play actions.
Speaker: which makes the short and intermediate game easier, easier.
Speaker: And then you design plenty of deep shots.
Speaker: I think that's the perfect situation for May.
Speaker: I think that's where we saw him most successful in college.
Speaker: And yeah, I massively agree with you that middle of being able to drive over the middle of the field is something that is very valuable in today's game.
Speaker: And he's
Speaker: Looks very good at, he's very prolific at it too.
Speaker: We see so many chunk yardage plays coming from that region of the field for him.
Speaker: And I'm really excited to see him in a proper NFL offense where these skills can be utilized.
Speaker: Because I feel like a lot of the time at UNC, he was just, the whole load of the offense was dropped on his shoulder and they were like,
Speaker: make something happen.
Speaker: And that's obviously great.
Speaker: Drake May is a great player.
Speaker: He can do that, but that's not the smartest way to use him.
Speaker: And I'm very intrigued to see how he's going to be used.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So let's get into some comps and team fits.
Speaker: So we discussed the middle of the field passing.
Speaker: We discussed the...
Speaker: Ability to push the ball deep down the field and probably mentioned a great point where you can kind of avoid Drake May's Short area inaccuracy issues by running the ball more and going more towards a play action deep shot offense He didn't play under center like at all.
Speaker: So that should be interesting to see how he adjusts to that I think that he has tools to translate well
Speaker: to playing that type of play action under center game, but should be still a projection.
Speaker: All right, let's get into the stuff that people like to hear, but I don't.
Speaker: This is the comp stuff.
Speaker: The two names that jumped to mind while watching Drake made for me were a young Ben Roethlisberger and Carson Wentz.
Speaker: And Carson Wentz is like a name that really like it can be all over the place depending on what year you pick.
Speaker: You get 2018 or 19 Carson Wentz.
Speaker: It's like a good starter, but very up and down.
Speaker: You get 2017 Carson Wentz, he's just insanity level player, strong pro bowler, making insane plays out of structure, doing stuff, pushing the ball down the field, able to push the ball over the middle.
Speaker: Or maybe you get 2020 Carson Wentz where he just sucks at football.
Speaker: It's just not good at all.
Speaker: And the young Ben Roethlisberger thing, a little bit of a similar thing, but...
Speaker: Roethlisberger has more size and less speed than Carson Wentz did relative to his size, but he still had the ability to push the wall down the field over the middle of the field, was aggressive, had accuracy issues like May and Wentz do, so kind of in that similar bucket.
Speaker: In terms of the aggression profile and the accuracy as well as having some some sort of mobility component to them as well Another area of similarity between these guys is that I think that all of them self-created time of their own pressure and
Speaker: Ben took a lot of sacks, which I don't think Drake May will.
Speaker: Carson Wentz's sack rate varied kind of by year quite significantly.
Speaker: So, yeah, again, like the amount of pressure that he's dealing with will kind of vary by how much his early pocket bails improve and how much the pressure management stuff will improve.
Speaker: But I think the foundation is there to be closer to early career Carson Wentz in terms of managing pressure than later career Carson Wentz.
Speaker: And then in terms of team fits, so we've discussed what his game looks like.
Speaker: The Vikings are like a really good fit for Drake May, I think.
Speaker: Not just because they have great personnel to run a downfield attacking offense.
Speaker: I love Jordan Addison in that type of offense.
Speaker: I love Justin Jefferson in any offense.
Speaker: They also have the coach to really take advantage of that, in my opinion.
Speaker: They have Kevin O'Connell, who's a very inventive offensive mind and is able to structure his offense really well, was working magic with Kirk Cousins, who was playing really well before his injury.
Speaker: And I think he could do something similar with Drake May to put him in a situation to succeed.
Speaker: So I really, really like that fit with the Vikings.
Speaker: Fulcher also talked about the Patriots being a reasonable fit.
Speaker: Now, it's tough to say.
Speaker: um anyone fits with the patriots because they don't have good pieces at all but in terms of guys who i think would survive that situation and still come out on the other side and have potential to be a great quarterback um only caleb looms would execute that type of situation better in my opinion so um yeah that's that's all i have to say about drake may you can take it away and then we'll wrap it up
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: So first things first in terms of where I see him in terms of the top teams in the draft.
Speaker: Looking at like the realistic people who could get him, I do think the commanders would be an interesting fit.
Speaker: We kind of made that Sam Howell comparison earlier and I think the best way to describe him is
Speaker: is like or maybe not the best way but he does sometimes play like a better version of a Sam Howell and I feel like that system is somewhat built for a guy like Drake May you do have kind of a lumbering ground and pound running backs at this point in their careers with Austin Eckler and Brian Robinson there you do have an offensive line there that
Speaker: in recent years has been pretty good I think they'll continue to be good next year and I think Drake May is the kind of guy who needs blocking more so than a lot of your other quarterbacks because if blocking does not look good in front of him you can see him kind of floundering sometimes and you have that guy in Terry McLaurin who is always open a great possession guy who will massively help
Speaker: in the kind of negatives in Drake May's game in terms of that short intermediate range of the field.
Speaker: Terry is always open, so even if he doesn't necessarily develop that aspect of his game quick, he has someone to go to.
Speaker: He has a guy in Jahan Dotson who is a deep threat.
Speaker: Obviously, I do feel like I'm stretching things a bit here, but when you are a player like Drake May and you're going that early in the draft, you're not going to have great options.
Speaker: I agree with your evaluation of the Pats.
Speaker: I think everyone struggles there in that situation.
Speaker: It just is what it is, and I can't really call that a good situation.
Speaker: One place that he can't go to anymore, but I feel like would have been amazing for him, would have been the Atlanta Falcons.
Speaker: I was really liking May to Atlanta before the Kirk Cousins signing, obviously.
Speaker: And I feel like that sort of offense is just perfect for his play style.
Speaker: The personnel they have is perfect for his play style.
Speaker: And I agree with you with the Vikings.
Speaker: I think the Vikings...
Speaker: Just to have a guy in Justin Jefferson who, if you can pair Justin Jefferson and May for like the next decade, you have to do that.
Speaker: And Jordan Addison, I think is perfect.
Speaker: He reminds me of a little bit of like Josh Downs.
Speaker: And we've seen May be very successful with that skill set.
Speaker: I don't know if this year they're going to have the best kind of short range running game.
Speaker: They have Aaron Jones.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: He hasn't necessarily been an efficient rusher with a lot of volume.
Speaker: So I'm a little unsure about that aspect, but I'm very confident Kevin O'Connell making good offense out of him.
Speaker: I do think they're a little bit out of reach, though, unless they trade up.
Speaker: And outside of those teams, there are not very many other teams in that top end of the draft that...
Speaker: can potentially get him.
Speaker: I've seen rumors of him slipping to Denver or them trading up.
Speaker: I don't see that happening and I also don't think that's a good fit for him and I'd be quite disappointed if he went to Denver.
Speaker: I think the personnel of receivers or whoever's left over there
Speaker: Already there isn't much talent.
Speaker: And even within the people who are there, they don't get much separation.
Speaker: It's not great for May.
Speaker: He would have a run game there, but that's about it.
Speaker: And going back to his NFL comparisons, off-camera, me and PD talked about the Wentz one.
Speaker: And I think that's so spot-on.
Speaker: Because it even evaluates the range of outcomes May could lead up to.
Speaker: I think MVP Carson Wentz that we saw pre that injury...
Speaker: is what the high end of drake may would be and the plays you saw on like the highlight tape of carson wentz back then probably is very similar to the best plays we see out of may those plays at a weird angle where he's falling over or getting hit or in the middle of a pocket and you just don't see how he got rid of the ball yet somehow some way it gets to the right spot and he's able to make a big play out of it
Speaker: That kind of level of magic and ability to make plays based off your flexibility and raw arm talent.
Speaker: That's something we saw so much out of Wentz.
Speaker: And then when you saw May have some of his games through, he's injured or forced to play a little bit more in structure.
Speaker: You saw that middle career Carson Wentz where he had clearly lost a step and he wasn't able to make those plays, but he was still somewhat comfortable in the pocket making plays.
Speaker: And then the bad version of Drake May would be if the age catches up to him, like I talked about earlier in the pod, or if injuries kind of add up as it did for Wentz.
Speaker: He could end up being that guy if he ends up getting a little bit bigger because he's not the kind of person who can just sit all day in the pocket and pick your team apart because of his flaws and fundamentals and just in general, that's not his game.
Speaker: But outside of Carson Wentz, another guy who I saw a lot of in May, and I think if he hits the high end, they would look so similar.
Speaker: I feel like it's Brett Favre.
Speaker: I think May is a lot better in terms of
Speaker: not turning the ball over even though that is a problem for him as well as Favre maybe may not have been as flexible as him maybe earlier in his career he was but not maybe not as much as May because of how good he is but in terms of play style the gunslinger mentality the amount of shoulder the amount of weight of the offense that was on their shoulders and the fact that they had a
Speaker: make stuff happen a lot of the time, especially early in their careers.
Speaker: I think that's very much May, and I see a lot of Favre in him.
Speaker: Yeah, the thing with Favre is, okay, I don't like throwing out Favre comps because him and Rodgers, they're off the comps list for me because their arms are like different stratosphere type of velocity.
Speaker: You get that type of velocity once every 25 years.
Speaker: That's fair.
Speaker: And I won't compare his arm talent to that degree, but it is one of the better ones that we've seen out of prospects recently, I would say.
Speaker: Yeah, I can get there.
Speaker: Especially on the run, on the move, in weird angles.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I can get there.
Speaker: That's why I went with guys who I think are a little closer in terms of their arm talent in Ben Roethlisberger and Carson Wentz.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Then Favre.
Speaker: Well, I see a little bit of the Favre thing.
Speaker: I do think Favre's flexibility when he was younger actually even surpasses Bay.
Speaker: Younger Favre, he invented sidearm throws.
Speaker: So, yeah, I think that Favre is...
Speaker: Favre is like a very unique player that I don't like comping, but yeah, I can see some elements of it in terms of the style of play and the aggression and certainly that.
Speaker: With the ability to avoid sacks, even if there's not like a consistency with the ball placement and stuff like that.
Speaker: But yeah, interesting comp there.
Speaker: Alright, that'll be all from us for this episode.
Speaker: Make sure to leave a like, leave us a rating, do what you need to do on whatever platform that you're listening on.
Speaker: Make sure to follow us on Twitter at PD34 underscore and at RealRahulPotty2.
Speaker: That'll be all from me, that'll be all from Potty.
Speaker: We'll see you guys in the next one.
Speaker: Peace.
Speaker: Peace out.
Speaker: Yeah, we could be superstars.
Speaker: But a pretty short time is over.
